On Sunday, Felix Dennis died at his home in Dorsington, England, near Stratford-upon-Avon. He was 67.

Dennis was chairman of the company that owns Mental Floss and The Week, a noted poet, and a colorful figure who lived what can only be described as a very full, very rich life. He had been battling cancer.

Dennis made a fortune in the magazine business, showing an uncanny sense of what people wanted to read and when. He launched Maxim and The Week in the United States, and many other successful magazines in the U.K. His last great project was the Heart of England Forest in Warwickshire, which, thanks largely to his efforts, has planted more than a million trees since 1990, creating the largest contiguous forest in England.

Here is Felix Dennis in his own, inimitable voice, at a TED talk in 2009: